Tune in to episode 2,004 of the Land Academy Show with Steven Jack Butala and Jill K DeWit! They’ll be tackling the five most common questions new Land Academy members ask. From debunking land-flipping myths to sharing inspiring success stories, this episode covers it all. Plus, get an exclusive look at a member’s incredible journey to half a million in revenue within their first year. Don’t miss out on this valuable discussion packed with insights for aspiring land investors!
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5 Most Asked Questions by New Land Academy Members (LA 2004)
This is Episode 2004. In this episode, we are talking about the Five Most Asked Questions by New Land Academy Members.
Is this your version, my version, or the team put them up? I’m curious. I get different questions like, “Are you guys married?” That’s what I got to start with. This is why I’m asking. This is why I want to know. Let me tell you my top five questions, and then you tell me yours.
Jill and I asked our staff to answer these questions, and we’ll be serious about it in a second, but I’d like to know your five.
“Are you guys married? Where the heck do you live? What do you mean you don’t go see your property? Did you make how much last year? Is this for real?” There we go. That’s my five. What are your five?
Can You Really Buy And Sell Land?
My five are, “Is this for real?” as number one, like what, “What is all this? Let’s cut to all the stuff. Stop horsing around on the show. What’s the deal? Can you buy land and resell it for more?”
That’s your number one.
That’s not a cocktail party or from people who have been in the real estate industry forever. I don’t have five of them. That’s the new one, “What’s the deal? Is this for real?”
It’s funny. From that cocktail party, it quickly goes to two things. It splits into, “Can I give you some money?” “Thanks. No, I don’t need that,” or “It’s obviously easy if you idiots can do it.”
Here’s a great example. Jill and I are finishing our estate planning. We’re amending it. We met with the lawyer that does it, and he’s like, “I looked you guys up before you got here. I love the land.” This is a 70-plus-year-old guy who’s probably got thousands and thousands of estates under his belt. All he wants to do is talk about land. He doesn’t care about our estate.
It’s almost like, “Eyes up here. Eyes off the plat map. My eyes are up here.” That’s a new thing. That’s good. I’m more than just a plat map.
I attribute that to, and I was thinking about it, we are somewhat guilty of Jill making this sound easy.
It’s true. It happens all the time.
It is easy for us. Here’s why, this is a little off-topic. Jill is amazing on the phone, doing a mailer and pricing a mailer is drinking a glass of water for me. That didn’t happen the first time. I can’t describe to you the number of mistakes I made. I don’t know about you, but the number of mistakes I made from the data’s perspective on my side of the sheet to get us to where we are now doing mailers. We don’t hold anything back. I’ll tell you exactly how I do mailers. That’s exactly what we instruct. It doesn’t take long for me to do 150,000-unit mailers. What did you say recently? If you have the right mindset and you kick some serious butt, you’re going to be great at this. In each episode, we answer a question from our Land Academy Member Discord forum and take a deep dive into a land-related topic by popular request from our Land Academy community. Let’s take a question.
An LA Pro member wrote this, “I was wondering where this person was at because I’m going to have this person on a podcast. This is a note to say thank you at my one-year mark in Land Academy. Below are my numbers.” Did they email this to you?
She sent it to me directly.
“I’m grateful for all I’ve learned from you, Jill, Carl, and Sam, our ambassadors. I joined Land Academy in early April 2023 and then did Career Path 6. I mailed 10,000 units right before Career Path 6 started. From April 1 to December 31, 2023, I mailed 94,896 letters. In 2023, I averaged 10,500 mailers a month. That’s what that came to. In 2024, I have mailed 49,371 letters. There, I’ve averaged 9,900 mailers a month.”
We’re four months into ‘24.
“All total, from May 2023 to the end of April 2024, my revenue is $567,623. That was from the first year at Land Academy, I made $500,000.”
She says revenue, but she means purchase price.
“The profit on the parcels is $268,046. This does not take into account all of the expenses.”
This is the buy side and sell side.
“Since January 1, 2024, my revenue has been $250,761.61.” She’s this good, “From December through mid-March, I hit a dry spell on getting properties into escrow. Since starting Land Academy, my average profit per property average has been $24,337. When I first started, I bought five properties that were smaller and lower-value, once that I would definitely walk from now.”
Me too.
“I also had four sales that had $49,000 to $50,000 profit each. Suite onward.” What a great thing.
I’m going to read between the lines and the numbers here and translate what I read out of this, then can you comment on the social piece, which is probably more important. She doubled her money, and we’ve been saying this forever, “Buy for $60, sell for $120. Buy for $30, sell for $60.” That’s what Jill and I have attempted to do our entire career. Until about many months ago, we were pretty much requiring that we make a $100,000 per deal cash.It may or may not be twice the profit, but we want to make more per deal and do fewer deals, which we’ve been doing. She has increased. She did almost $100,000 in mailers in calendar ‘23, which costs about $60,000 as an upfront cost that I don’t think people fully digest before getting into it. She is not afraid of that. She has other businesses. We know this person extremely well. She’s in a weekly meeting with us for LA Pro members. Four months ended in 24. She sent out 50,000 mailers so far. She’s way ahead. She’s increased the number of mailers that she’s sending out over 2023. She’s doing everything right. Numbers wise. She’s averaging 10,000 mailers a month. I think that’s a little light. I would take that to 15,000.
She can handle it.
Easily. What she’s doing is looking at the numbers part of this, increasing everything constantly then her dry spell did not knock her off the rails. If I had a nickel for every dry spell we’ve had. Dry spells don’t. It doesn’t knock me off the rails ever. I think it’s funny. I do think it’s humorous when stuff happens.
What’s funny is when she says the dry spell, that means like, “I only did six deals instead of ten this month,” or something like that when I thought I was going to do twelve. Everybody’s version of that is different. It’s not like everything shut down for three months.
That’s the numbers part of it. She’s got it licked, and she’s micromanaging it. What’s the magic sauce with her?
The magic sauce with her is what I’m going to talk about. On my lady’s call, this ties right in. You have to go with this like a crazy person. Put your head down. What’s interesting is about this individual, she came to us from another environment where she was wildly successful, but they weren’t yielding profits. It was low numbers and stuff. I’m happy that she found us, she’s here. She’s a good, successful member of LA Pro. She uses our staff. My transaction coordinator is her transaction coordinator. I know that she loves that. That’s helped take a lot off her plate too.
That wasn’t always the case. She did everything by herself. She’s a great addition to this whole operation. She’s vocal. She constantly shares positives and negatives with us within the group.
This is a perfect example of my push and to let you guys know that this is one of the many successful Land Academy ladies in our community, and they are killing it. I can’t wait for something coming that will hopefully inspire and push forward even more females.
How many other female land investing groups are there out there?
I can’t think of any.
Top 5 Questions From New Members
There’s zero. This episode’s topic is The Five Most Asked Questions by New Land Academy Members. These are the direct five, and we’ll talk about it. This is what our intake people get when people call or send an email asking us about, “Is this for real?” These are the five biggest questions and not necessarily any order that we get. 1) “How do I price a mailer if I had a nickel?”
Welcome to Land Academy. That’s what we teach you. Next.
2) “How many mailers does it take to get a purchase agreement?” 3) “Is there an orientation group coming up?” 4) “How long does it take to get a purchase agreement?” That’s twice now. 5) “Can my partner share my membership?” 1) “How do I place a mailer?” I’ll happily answer that in about 30 seconds. Pricing a mailer is what is about 30% of what you need to be learning before you do this successfully. The other 70% lies in what Jill does.There’s no such thing as a perfectly priced mailer. It doesn’t exist. Pricing a mailer is the most amazingly priced mailer that could ever happen. You do no good if you’re not taking the calls, you send the mailer out, receive the calls from the potential sellers and convert them into real estate deals, but nobody asks that. I have to take some personal responsibility. Here’s a question that I think you should call our people and ask them, how do I take a call from somebody who wants to sell their real estate and convert it into a real estate deal? That’s not on the list. Jill has all the answers to this stuff.
Do you tell me what you want me to share or not share here?
Here’s what I’m going to extract from these five questions, “How do I price a mailer? How many mailers do I get from a purchase? How many mailers does it take to go to a purchase agreement? Is there an orientation group? Can I share it with my partner?”
Some of these are for people coming into Land Academy, and some of these are questions that clearly look like they may be in Land Academy. Do you want me to one by one knock these out?
One second. When I read between the lines, what I hear is the profile of a potential member who’s asking these questions is, “I want to do it fast. I want to do it with a great mailer. I want to collect some money,” which is a day trader mentality, “I want to beat the system. I want to buy the cheapest stuff that I can, sell it as fast as I can, and enjoy the money and enjoy the profit.” That’s not what this is. It’s not fast and easy. The question earlier, that’s how you do this. It’s methodical. There are several parts to it. You have to answer the phone and have a dynamic personality that doesn’t know when to quit. go ahead.
I’ll go through them. This is my version. Some of you are, “How do I price them?” We covered that. Let me first pause and note that these are very different questions than we used to get when we launched Land Academy in 2015. Isn’t that funny? When we launched Land Academy back in 2015, many years ago, it was like, “Who the heck are you guys? What are you talking about? How can you possibly make money on land and you’re not doing anything to it?” You must be subdividing or doing something like that.
“What’s the trick?”
It was those questions. It was funny. They’re like, “What’s direct mail? All kinds of things like that were so funny.” I think this is cool that those words have gotten out. If you’re here and you’ve been reading to us for a while, you know, understand and get it. Now it’s more like some of the nuances that are coming up and all the things that we talk about, you need to know that coming into Land Academy, you’re going to be so coached, taught, and comfortable. We have many years of helping people now, not many months because even before we launched Land Academy, we were helping people along the way.
We talked about that before, helping our peers, our customers, and other wholesalers because it was like, “I’m happy to share. There’s enough property to go around. You’re obviously mailing whatever region in the country, and I’m in this region of the country. Why would I not share with you? There’s no reason not to.” That’s the big-picture thing. For me, that’s the takeaway here. To blip through these, if these are on your mind, I’m happy to help. Pricing mailer, we got that like Jack said, that’s one of the biggest components to Land Academy. How many mailers does it take to get a purchase agreement? For me, not as many as someone brand new, I’ll be honest with you.
Importance Of Member Support
For me, not as many as someone that cannot speak on the phone, and they’re Debbie Downer thing. Those are the things that we help you with in Land Academy. I have solutions for all these. Is there a secret sauce to that? Yes, depending on where you’re mailing, how you’re pricing, and even on the property type, there are a lot of nuances to this. All things we discuss heavily, including now a point of nausea in Land Academy, I promise. You could come to Discord and search for a certain region of property type and acreage even. I bet you’re going to find someone who’s already had a discussion on this. You’re going to go like, “Now I know what to prepare myself as I’m doing this mailer right now.”
Let’s start. How many mailers does it take to get through a PA?
Land, lots, and houses.
I would not ask that question. I would say, “What do I have to do to make sure that my mailer yields purchase agreements” You’re not going to do a mailer. You’re not going to sign up for Land Academy. Learn how to do all this, and learn how to price a mailer, send the mail out, and then look at your watch. That’s not what you do. You all the calls, you’re going to take the calls and you’re going to convert if you’re amazing like Jill, is your conversion rate from mailer to purchase agreement that’s the real juice of this. The mailer goes out and converts it to deals or whatever that looks like for you. We know what it looks like for us. Your mailer does not yield a purchase agreement.In real estate, it’s not just about how many mailers you send; it's about converting those calls into purchase agreements. Share on X
I had this conversation. We have a couple of new people on our staff. I was talking to a new person helping out with people wanting to join Land Academy and asking questions. I said, “Everyone, when you’re talking to people and they’re asking some of these questions about how we do this,” and within Land Academy, I share this, “I fully believe every darn single person who is picking up the phone to call you wants to do business with you. Hands down. How many mailers does it take to get a purchase agreement? I’m going to say one. Do you think I’m kidding? I won’t let them off the phone. If we’re not on the same page, we’re going to figure out if we can get on the same page.”
Approach each call with the mindset to close the deal, no matter what. It's about persistence and strategy. Share on X
One of us doesn’t budge if the only reason that’s what happened. It takes me one mailer to get a purchase agreement. That’s the thing. That’s the reality. Maybe it’s not their price or not my price, but I can get a purchase agreement. I can say, “Cross it off. Write whatever number makes sense to you and send it to me. I’ll see if I make that work, so one.” That’s good. That’s going to be funny.
We’re going to get 600 miles on this.
They will be like, “What?” This is what I coached you and taught. I want to get you there or as close as I can to get you there.
You bring up 2015 for a good reason when we started instructing Land Academy when we released it. There were very few people teaching this, and there was nobody teaching this on the internet correctly. The nature of these questions has changed so much from what Jill described because there are a lot of fly-by-night groups out there teaching about buying and selling land, largely because there are other groups preaching us, “You got to start an education company. You got to start a membership company.”There are people who join our group, take our information, regurgitate it, and then expect results. In reading between the lines, the core of it is, “I got to do these five things and I’m going to make a bunch of money. I got to do a mailer. I got to price it right? I’m going to get some purchase agreements and I’m going to buy it, resell it, and make money, and that’s it.” That’s just not this.
Loosely, those are the steps, but there are 80 other steps to going in there.
There’s an incredible amount of dynamic personality in between this that’s required.
If you don’t have it, you can get it. Let’s move on. Is there an orientation group coming up? Do you know what’s interesting about this? I’m pivoting. I’ll tell you right now, I’m going to pivot. We have a good onboarding system, help, and support system within Land Academy showing you what to do in videos where you can step by step, watch here and click here. I’m pivoting this to personal coaching because everyone’s asking for it. I’m waiting for our new team to tell me when I can launch it. They’re like, “Not yet.” I’m not ready. We’re going to get even better and it’s optional. If you want personal coaching, it’s there for you.
If you don’t, you don’t. Many people have asked for it so we’re going to make that happen. How long does it take to get a PA? It could be hours or minutes. I’ve been on the phone with people. They’re like, “What are you talking about? Purchase agreement. What is this whole question about?” We sent out the mail. The seller calls me, the owner. They don’t know they’re a seller yet. The property owner calls me. We have a wonderful conversation and we agree on a price. Maybe before I hang up, they sign it and scan it while we’re on the phone and they send it to me.
It’s like a picture.
It pops up on my cell phone. I say, “Great. I’m opening escrow right now. Susie at ABC Title will be calling you tomorrow morning.” “Great. Thanks, Jill.” It could be like that. Is it always like that? No, it could be like that. Honestly, it should be like that. This is part of my things that I’m talking about a lot with the land ladies and other things. We have the advance call next week that I want to talk about. I’m seeing too many people take their time and get to it when they can. You’re not going to get any deal done if that’s your package.
You are not going to get anything done online if you do that.
You need to hang up the phone and have a next step with that person. How long to get a purchase agreement? Minutes, then it should be another hour. If you don’t have a title company lined up you’ve got it over to them and the processes started.
Personal Stories And Role Play
Here’s what we’re talking about. Here’s an actual example. The phone rings. You answer the phone.
I’m ready to role-play.
Here’s how a data person would answer the phone, “I’m sorry. Is somebody there?” Yeah.” “I think you sent me a letter because you want to buy my property in Yavapai County?” Silence.
The paper’s moving.
“Do you want to buy it?” “Maybe.” “What does it say? How much did I offer?” You’re never going to get real estate done ever in your life if you answer the phone that way. In fact, you’re probably not going to get anything you want in life if you have that personality and talk like that.
Turn that into a marriage proposal. I want to hear how this individual functions in life.
“I pictured myself getting married, not to you.” This is you sitting at Applebee’s with a ring in your pocket. I pictured marrying a girl.
You bought her the Oreo cookie thing.
“It’s not what I want as much as I thought,” but maybe I pictured a girl that looks a lot different than you, “What do you say? Will you marry me?”
Is that what it says? This is your version of that, “I’m 30. Number four on my list of things to do with life is get married, and then below that is start a family. I’m on number four.”
That’s a girl’s dream.
“You’re sitting there so you’re up.”
“I asked three girls earlier and Al said no, so you’re my fourth choice.”
What do you say? Every woman’s dream, “By the way, it’s my mom’s ring or my grandma’s ring.” I didn’t do anything.
How do you answer that phone?
“My mom made me do this because I’m 30. Maybe I’m 40.” “You’re 40. Mom’s getting anxious now.
“She wants me to move out.”
That’s the best.
We joke about this, both of our sons are in somewhat committed relationships, and I swear they went from boys to men about two weeks after they met these girls. Will they end with these girls? Probably not, but it doesn’t matter.
The girls are making them better men. They’re on their own. They’re self-sufficient. It’s great. One’s 25. One’s 20. It’s awesome. Do you want me to do a role play with the right way or we got that going?”
Sure.
“This is Jill.”
“I think you sent me a letter to purchase one of my properties in Apache County.”
“I did. Can you tell me about it?”
“I inherited it from my father and I think he inherited it, I’m not sure how he got it. Obviously, we’re not going to use it. I do want to sell it, but the offer that you sent is not going to work for us.”
“Let me look it up. Do you have some of the information on it?
“It said X, Y, Z.”
“I’m looking at it right now. I have a question about access. I can’t tell if the road’s on it. Have you ever been there?”
“No. I don’t think my dad was ever there.”
“I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to put some time into this. I want to look this up and see what we can do here. This is Jill. I’m the owner. Whatever deal you and I make this is a deal. What’s going to be on your check?
“I don’t have to sell this and I’m not interested in a low-ball offer, but we’re not going to use it.”
“I understand. Let me ask you this then. You got my offer and you made it clear to me that that doesn’t work.”
“$2,800 is not going to work.”
“Keeping in mind who I am, and I’ve already explained how the transaction’s going to go, what is the number that is your rock bottom, ‘For this, I’m happy to walk away number and I’ll see if I can make it work?”’Keep in mind, I’m cash fast. I’m going to pay for all this stuff.”
“How long would the whole thing take?”
“I have Susie at ABC Title ready to go. I can get this done in ten days.”
“What can you pay us then?”
“I gave you a number. My number is $2,800. What is a number that makes sense to you? I’ll see if I can make it work.”
“I’ll have to check with my wife. $2,800 is not completely out of the question if you can do it quickly and Christmas is coming. My wife has been bothering me about this for two years. I don’t think it’s the land that bothers her. I think it’s a thing on a list of things that we should be doing at our age that we have to take off the list.”
“I understand. You should see our garage. My poor husband has his own version of this going on. I can totally relate to you, Mr. Jones. I’m going to make this easy and painless. I’m going to go look at this $2,800. Now we’re on the same page about that number. Give me 24 hours. I’m going to check a couple of things with the county, double-check this access and fill in the blank. I’m going to call you tomorrow. What’s the best time for you? What’s the best number for me to reach you at?”
“We get 3 or 4 of these letters every quarter, maybe 1 or 2 a month. You’re the only person I ever phone.”
“That’s too bad. I understand. I’m going to do this for you, and we’re going to make this easy. Have you thought about what you want to do with the dough besides get your wife off your back about it?”
“How’s tomorrow at noon?”
“You got it. I will call you then. Thank you, Mr. Jones.”
“Thanks very much.”
“Bye.”
That’s how I convert a real estate deal.
You don’t have to talk for twenty minutes. We’re getting into sales. We need to go there. We can have a whole other episode on this. There are closed-ended questions that you should ask and then there are open-ended questions you should ask. When you ask a few of those quick open-ended questions about what you know about the property, watch this flood of information. Sometimes they share information that you’re like, “I don’t think I want to share that. I already got paid out because Dad let a telephone company put a cell tower in the back area and it’s not blocking anything. Dad already got
$80,000 for it.” I’m like, “Now I know that.” There’s lots of stuff.
Here’s a world that we live in right now according to me. Everybody has got their guard as soon as they leave the front door. Whether you run into somebody when you’re running into the gas station to pay your bill, everybody’s first reaction, including that of the store clerk or me even, and probably you, is, “Is this the person that cut me off on the road? How am I going to be disappointed today? What’s going to go wrong?”When these people call back, they need to be completely disarmed in that call and within a few minutes, we’re starting down the path of establishing trust. Two more phone calls like that, and now I’m ready to take her phone call back because she’s not one of those people that I have to be worried about. She’s not the person who cut me off on the way to the grocery store. She’s not the real angriest store clerk. If I was a store clerk, I’d be angry too. She’s not a bad person. Step by step, that $2,800 that we offered, she’s going to get it for that, or maybe it’s $3,000 just to get the deal done.Successful real estate deals are built on trust and open communication. Keep the conversation going. Share on X
“Maybe, I’m happy with that.”
She disarmed the whole scenario and started down the path of trust. Two more phone calls, they’re going to be talking about grandchildren, what the weather is, and the mechanics of the deal. That’s how you do it.
The last one, “Can my partner share my membership?” We have partnership opportunities. You need to call and talk to my staff. There’s a way that we can work that out because we have husband and wife, siblings, partners in the same state, and partners in different states. Whatever your situation is, we have a solution for all that. No problem.
I started down this rabbit hole, then I bought these five things that people ask. I asked our mailing, the guy who runs our mailing company, the same thing. Offers 2 Owners is the name of our mailing company about what potential members ask the top five questions. 1) How many mailers does it take to yield a deal?” It’s one of the same questions for Land Academy. 2) “Is a land investing community oversaturated?” I’ll answer that in a second. 3) “How much money do I need to start?” 4) “How do I pick a county to mail, to send mail? 5) “Do I need a membership to send land mailers of through Offers 2 Owners?”
These are great. This is a Q&A jumble of all kinds of different things. I love it.
We’re going to be redundant here, “How many mailers does it take to yield a deal?” That depends on you. I’m going to give you some real numbers. When I started this, it was about 500 to 1. When we started Land Academy, it was about 800 to 1, but these are deals with a property that was entirely and completely unusable. We didn’t have data the way that we have now. We had no mapping systems. This is before Google Earth.We had no idea where it was and neither did the seller. People who were getting mind mailers, this is back in the early 2000s, didn’t know where the property was. All they knew back then is that they were sick and tired of paying the real estate taxes twice a year. Our yield was great, but the quality of properties that we were getting, because we couldn’t research them, we would buy anything at all. We came back and signed. We would do the deal.We’d resell it and they would buy anything because they couldn’t resell it. These are not the good old days. The good old days are right now. Everybody’s got an incredible amount of information. Everything is transparent. There’s no more dark boards, “I wonder what’s going to happen with this real estate deal? Now you know what’s going to happen. Those are the bottom yield numbers when we started, the yield for us now under our criteria, just you and I, to make $100,000 is maybe 10,000 or 15,000 mailers for them. It’s 10,000 a month to do a deal.
I think ours are lower than that, but I’ll let you go with that number.
Do you know how many deals we turn down?
I can’t accurately ask this question because I don’t buy them all that commit me.
I talked to somebody who’s pretty active in the group, and they said, “All we want to do is make $5,000 a transaction.” If that’s you and you have a personality like you read Jill on that theoretical phone call, you are going to kill it in this environment. You are going to knock it out of the park. If you want to make an extra $60,000 during 10 or 12 deals a year, you’re going to smash it. Yield is all relative. It depends on your personality.
If you pick a good area.
If you pick a good area, we go through all the stuff.
We teach you.
Your threshold. If you want to make $5,000 or $10,000 a month, you’re going to do extremely well. Notice I didn’t say how well your price, your mailer because that’s going to happen anyway. That isn’t for whatever reason. It has been since we started this, the number one question. One of the things you should worry about the least is the land investing community oversaturated.
I feel bad. I think it’s thinning out a little bit. Sadly, I don’t. I know there are a lot of people who want to be, and they think they are, but they’re not sending mail.
The land investing community isn't oversaturated. If you have the right mindset and persistence, you can succeed. Share on XThey’re not answering the phone.
That’s the bigger one.
That’s what I think is happening.
We have so much property out there and I forget about it. It’s the funniest thing on the planet. I have a thing where this guy sent me a letter. I’m like, “He can have it.” It was one of the first people that followed through. Ask me how many phone conversations we had.
How many? Zero. You haven’t even talked to this person?
No.
You got a trophy for that.
It’s been emailed. I signed it and sent it right back, then they emailed me. We talked about a couple of questions. We talked about this in another episode so you got to read where we are. They emailed me stupid questions. I lightly answered a couple and said, “Knock it off, do your homework.” They emailed me back with some more stupid questions. I said, “You need to knock it off and call me when you’re done because I’m not answering these stupid questions. This is your job to do this. If you want it for this price, you’re doing the homework.” That’s what I do. I’m expected to knock it off. They said, “We’re sending you an overnight envelope with a check in it and a deed.” I’m waiting for the check to clear. I didn’t even tell my transaction coordinator. Their check showed up. I’m ready to send it back as soon as the check clears.
I researched which property this is. They’re getting a pretty good deal.
I know. I forgot about it. It’s too small for me.
I understand.
I feel bad.
I’m not criticizing at all. You’re getting a deal done.
It’s like M said earlier in the question, she’s like, “There are some deals that now I wouldn’t even do anymore.”
That’s what this is.
I know. That’s the thing. It’s too little money for me. Thank you. I’ll be truthful too. They’re not even members of the Land Academy. I like, “I feel like doing a good thing. Here you go.”
Is the land investing community oversaturated? Let me put it to you this way. I’m going to estimate, and this directly preludes to the next question, the number three. There are probably about 1,000 people who are actively sending mail in this entire investment land community. I don’t mean Land Academy. I mean everyone.
Consistently.
I don’t even think consistently. I think there are active people that come in and out and all of that. Maybe 1,000. There are probably 200 or 300 that do it consistently like Jill and I do. There are 1.6 million licensed real estate agents in this country, waking up in the morning and running around trying to get listings on houses. Let that sink in. Is that oversaturated? It doesn’t seem to be because every real estate agent I talk to is either making money hand over fist or almost out of business.The land-invested community is the same way, only the pot is a lot smaller. If you have the type of personality where you would do great as a real estate agent, or if you are a real estate agent and you’re doing great, you’re going to kill it here. It’s the same thought process and it’s the same, “I got to get up in the morning, schedule myself, and have small little goals. It’s all the same thing.”
I was going to add a little something to that. I have a sweet little mousey girl that does my nails. She’s a real estate agent. She does this on this side. I said, “How many listings do you have right now?” She said, “Four.” Isn’t that sweet? I’m like, “good for you.”
Did you ask her why they’re not sold?
We had a long talk about it, and they’re doing great. It’s fast.
We have enough time going on.
I don’t remember all the exact details on all of them. One of them is getting ready to stage it. She’s talking to the right person to stage it. She’s moving them through the system. She’s doing a good job. I don’t remember all the details, but it’s good. I’m proud of her.
3) “How much money do I need to start?” This is directly associated with number two. For whatever reason, and I think this happens in every type of business, people think that it should cost nothing and you should reap huge rewards. That’s not the case. There’s a risk-reward. To me, this business is low risk. If you don’t want to put any money in, you like real estate and you want to make $2,000, $3,000 to $5,000 a month, that’s what being a real estate agent is, “Go get your license. Don’t put any money in except for your association dues or whatever that costs.”Hump as hard as you can. Work as hard as you can. Get a bunch of listings like Jill’s nail tech and make some money. Make $3,000, $5,000 to $10,000 per deal and have a great life. That’s not what this is. It costs money to do the mail. It costs money for education if that’s the route that you choose, but it doesn’t cost money to do a real estate deal. That’s what partners are for.That’s one of the huge benefits of Land Academy. Your job at Land Academy is to find an amazing real estate deal by doing what Jill does on the phone. If you can get a signed purchase agreement and you’ve got $13 in your checking account, you’re going to go into the Land Academy community and find somebody who funds deals. Hopefully, it’s us. We’re going to buy the deal, pay 100% of it, and we’re going to split it with you some percentage so you can get on your way. You could do 10 or 15 deals on your belt and then you don’t need us anymore. “How much money do I need to start?” You need money for mail, to pay your rent or your mortgage like you do, any way you need money if you choose for education, data, and stuff. It’s not a hard dollar amount. Do you ever answer this question directly?
Absolutely. If you have $5,000 to $10,000, you could get started. Preferably, $10,000, but where else can you do anything for $10,000? That’s my number because then you could afford the education. You got a couple of months of membership, which is basically to get you access to data you can afford to send out some mail.
If it costs $5,000 to $10,000 to start this, the number two question was, “Is it saturated?” That’s the reason this isn’t saturated. It costs some money to get into it. The reason that the real estate agent environment is grossly oversaturated is that it doesn’t cost any money to get into it. You have to take a $300 class, pass the test, and spend $2,000 or $3,000 in association dues so you can get access to the MLS.
That’s a light bulb moment. Good. I am glad that it costs some money to get into this because you need to be serious about it. It’s going to weed out a lot of people because they can’t afford to send mail. That’s fine.
If you are doing 10 or 12 deals a year and you want to do $300 or $400, this is great news for you. The fact that this costs some money is keeping a lot of people out of it. 4) “How do I pick a county to send mail? Where should I send mail?” We spend two chapters on this. To the point, I have what’s called a red green yellow test. There’s a process of trolling around on the internet using Zillow and Realtor.com and then going through the red, green, and yellow tests that explain it in great detail. In career path, which is our mastermind group, we do it all together. We do it to the point where everybody in the group is satisfied that they can do it on their own. 5) “Do I need a membership to send land mailers?”Picking the right county is crucial for successful mailers. Use thorough research and strategic tools to guide you. Share on X
No, but it’s cheaper if you do. Can I go back and cover this? This comes up a lot. Seriously. Here’s the bottom line. You’re nuts if you’re going to invest a whole lot of money in mailers and you don’t know what you’re doing. I wouldn’t do that. It’s like, “I’m going to start fill in the blank. I can figure it out. I’m going to watch some YouTube videos. I’m going to wing it. I don’t care what it is. I’m not even talking about what we do.”
Don’t start anything unless you’re going to give it a good go, then if you’re going to give it a good go, do it right. Get some education because here’s what happens. You could spend 5 to 10 years doing the school of hard knocks to get where we are, or you could spend 5 to 10 days and catch up by joining and watching education and going, “Now I know what I’m doing.” That’s different. 5 to 10 days or 5 to 10 years? That’s my new slogan.
This is an added bonus. The guy that runs Offers 2 Owners, our company, the mailing company if you’re an active member, are the questions any different? If you’re a member of Land Academy you’ve been around for a few months or maybe even a year, you’re about to do a mailer and here are your five questions, “How much does it cost?” Great question. You have to be conscious about mail costs. 2) “What do successful investors do?”? This is a question I would ask. I’m going to translate this concept and I’m asking you, what are the five questions you would ask when you’re joining a new group? The first one that I would ask any new group is this exact question, “Give me the full profile and give me as much detail, Jack and Jill, of the type of person who’s in the top 10% of the performers in your group”
“What separates the men from the boys?”
“Do I have it?” That’s what I’m asking. What do successful investors do? 3) “How often should I be sending mail?” Great question. A very good question. 4) “How long does it take to obtain and close my first deal?” Pretty good question. “How long does it take to get the ball rolling and start now that I’m a member.” 4 and 5 are the same question, “How much does the mailer cost?”
That’s easy. Go to Offers2Owners.com, and it’s right on the page.
There are two products. 1) You do it yourself. 2) We do it for you. They’re priced differently. They’re between $0.65 and $0.98. If you’re reading this in 2026, which is going to happen, the numbers are real different.
Also, 2036. Where are we going to be, “2036, this is going to rock.” What if we’re still in these seats in 2036?
It’s a good sense of humor, and if you want to feel great about yourself, go back and look at what Jill and I look like.
We were having a whole joke about that. I said, “You’ll not hurt my feelings if you want to do a whole collage of Jill’s hairstyles over the years, go for it. Bangs, no bangs. Light or dark.”
“What do successful investors do? What’s the profile of somebody who succeeds at this?” 1) Whatever they’ve done in life, they’ve already succeeded at it.
Mine’s two words. Do you know what’s the thing about successful investors? No fear. That’s it. That’s all I got.
If you had a chain of restaurants, you sold them and you’re like, “Thank God I got out of that and I got a bunch of money,” you’re going to smash this out of the park. If you retired as a mechanical engineer and endured that, or an accountant, something technical, a corporate sales, or you’re halfway through that environment and you do well at it, you got an extra bunch of money and your bills are taken care of for, and you need to do something on the side to make a bunch of money and have some fun, you’re going to smash this. If you are a successful parent, you’re going to do well at this. On the flip side of this, here’s a profile of somebody that’s a good one. If you’re brand spanking new at this and you answer the phone the way that I did earlier in the program, you’re not going to do well.You need education about sales and personality. Here’s another component that’s essential. I don’t care if you have been successful or not. You need to create a calendar for yourself, which we talk all about in the program and stick to it. We have what’s called Mailer Monday. You should spend a whole week working on a mailer, learning, or whatever else, and you give yourself a deadline to, by the end of the day on Monday, have it done, reviewed, and submitted to offer sale owner owners.
Our most successful Land Academy people come at this like crazy people
Reckless mailing.
They join on Friday. They consume it all Saturday and Sunday. On Monday they’re sending something to Offers 2 Owners to get in the mail. That’s it. That’s a flat-out fact. If you came at this like that, there’s no stopping.
Do you have that personality?
Yes.
So do I.
“How often should I be sending mail?” I like this. This is a good question.
You should be doing a mailer a month. In the very beginning, you should ask Offers 2 Owners to cut it up somehow. You’ve got 10,000 or 15,000 units of data that have been submitted, priced, and done. You can ask them to cut it up into week-by-week, biweekly, bimonthly, or twice a month. You won’t have to do that in the future. If you want to hone your phone skills, once a month is the answer.
“How long does it take to obtain and close my first deal?” As fast as you want it. I’ve had deals come in that first day. I’m not kidding and every person in Land Academy who has been here more than a year will say the same thing. They’re like, “The calls came in. I knew the area. I loved it. We made the deal. I am up in escrow the next day.”
What you’re shooting for is cash in and cash out for 30 days. Buy for $50, sell for $90.”
I’m still going to try to double my money. I like to buy for $30 and sell for $90.
I know you do.
I’m a nut about that. Isn’t that hilarious? She says, “This is fine. We can do it to that.” I’m like, “No, I need more. I want more wiggle room I get it.” “How long does it take to get the ball rolling and start now that I’m a member?” What are you doing today?
It takes as long as you allow it.
Our sweet girl the other day said, “Here goes another lost Sunday,” which we said, “Cheers to many lost Sundays because you have a few lost Sundays and you’re going to be rich.”
There’s a long list of multimillionaires that have lost a lot of Sundays. Let’s put it that way. If it’s not apparent enough, we have a full-blown mailing company called Offers2Owners.com, where we will do your mailer for you. We will process the documents that you create as instructed at Land Academy and get your mailer out and get it done. We have millions and millions of mailers we send out every year. We have a lot of experience with this. We’re the most experienced in the country at doing this.
This one started it for all of them.
We got frustrated with regular commercial printers. We don’t do catalogs. We don’t do four-colored bleed. We don’t do any of that stuff. We send Offers 2 Owners. That’s all we do. Check us out on the internet.
Don’t forget to go to LandAcademy.com if you want to find out more, learn more about us, the program, or schedule a call and talk to my team. I thought we were going to do this last little part.
You have some inspiration to share.
Preparing Yourself And Your Family
We’re going to back up a minute here. I was preparing for this show and I’m going to talk for a minute about this, my last little nugget because it’s high on my list. I’m noticing a trend of people not doing this. I’m not kidding. This is the one thing that separates the men from the boys. They’re not crazy people. You need to go at this like a crazy person. I have three little things to say about that 1) You got to prepare yourself like, “How do I be a crazy person? What are you talking about? How do I make this work and come at it like that?”
Do you know what you do? You prepare yourself. Preparing yourself is getting everything, all your ducks in a row, clearing your calendar, clearing your plate, mind, and surrounding yourself with the right people, and having a checklist of steps that you need to do to go from zero to deal close. We have all that in Land Academy for you. 2) You need to prepare your family and friends. I’m not kidding.
This is good stuff.
Your wife, spouse, partner, or whoever’s in your world needs to be on the same page. They need to be prepared to know that we are not going to take a trip this month or maybe this year. “This is all the stuff that we’ve done.”
“I love this stuff.”
“This is how I know this. This is our life. We’re not doing this this year, this month, this summer or whatever it is or this weekend.” Also, the family. It’s your whole circle and your friends, “We’re not going dark on you because we don’t like you. We’re going dark on you because we’re working on something important for our family.”
“Some of you are.”
You could use this as an excuse for that too. Anyone you don’t like, tell them this is why. The truth is you need to prepare people, and we’ve done that. I had a conversation with somebody about this on the phone, “Do you know what happened while we were doing Land Academy? I was on a different level in our home at the time. You were downstairs doing the bulk of the writing, recording, and editing for the original Land Academy. What was I doing? I was upstairs buying and selling land to keep food on the table. You know what else my other job was because what he was doing was important. Mine I had down. He was new and important. There’s a big learning curve, “I’m bringing him a sandwich now and making sure he had everything you need. I’d come down and check the thermostat. Are you sweating? Can I get you water or tea? What do you want?”
This is not gender specific. I cut up an apple for you because we’re recording during lunchtime.
This is where this came up because there’s a member in Land Academy whose wife is the rockstar in their environment. I’m like, “She needs to hit because she’s the person that’s the best on the phones. That’s the whole thing.” Their whole company’s dependent on her getting these deals done. I had to rip the bandaid off and say she needed to do this. How can we do this for her? She’s also the primary breadwinner right now. I said, “You need to meet her at the door and rub her feet and hand her a drink. Get her ready tomorrow morning to get up, call back some people, and make these deals happen before she goes to our other job.”
That’s great advice.
That’s the thing. That’s preparing everybody. 3) Flip the switch and don’t look back. Now we can end the show.
I have something inspirational to share. I would like you, if you’re a movie buff, to go watch the movie Snack Shack. It is on Amazon. I don’t know if it might be in the theater too, but it’s new. It’s about two fourteen-year-old boys from the Midwest. I think they’re from Nebraska. I’ve watched it move twice now. All I see is myself in both of those boys. It’s all in the spirit of these kids being born entrepreneurs and they have a snack shack during the summer. There are 1,000 things that happen to them. Most of them caused themselves because they’re fourteen, which almost ensures they’re not going to be successful and they smash it.
I love it. That’s a great movie. You made number three. Watch that. I saw that so good.
Join us next time for another interesting episode. You’re not alone in your real estate ambition. We are Jack and Jill, information and inspiration to buy undervalued property.
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Land Academy PRO is the brainchild of founders Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit. Designed at the request of Land Academy members who are ready for a higher level, we’re excited to continue to provide the tools and support needed by professional investors.
Each level comes with a preset amount of included data, Concierge Mail service, and postage. For example, the Green level includes 6,000 units of completed-for-you mail completely out the door at no extra cost to you.
All levels include a PatLive introduction and preset script (we will set up your phone answering for you), use of Land Academy’s personal Transaction Team to manage your deal flow, an AirTable (CRM) base setup managed by our (and your!) Transaction Coordinator, personal consulting, regular office hours, and includes your Land Academy subscription cost.
If you’re making this a business, Land Academy PRO takes the work off of your plate so you can focus on the things that matter – like running your business.
Green
$11,066
per Month
Silver
$16,049
per Month
Gold
$21,032
per Month
Platinum
$26,015
per Month
Black
$30,998
per Month
Concierge Data+ (with data)
Included mailers each month (data + concierge + mailer + postage). Our team will do your data for it and get it out the door.
6,000 mailers
9,000 mailers
12,000 mailers
15,000 mailers
18,000 mailers
PatLive introduction at no cost
We will help you establish your first script and get PatLive set up on your behalf to answer your phones.
$500 value
$500 value
$500 value
$500 value
$500 value
Transaction Coordinator
Use of our personal Transaction Coordinator team to manage your deals. Trained and ready to go!
$7,500 value
$7,500 value
$7,500 value
$7,500 value
$7,500 value
AirTable
Ready-for-you CRM managed by your personal Land Academy Pro Transaction Coordinator
$100 value
$100 value
$100 value
$100 value
$100 value
Personal Consulting
1 on 1 personal consulting with our Transaction Coordinator each week.
-
-
$1,000 value
$1,000 value
$1,000 value
Regular Office Hours
Regular office hours with Jack and Jill + our staff. Private for LA Pro Members Only. (Think Career Path Office Hours)
$2,500 value
$2,500 value
$2,500 value
$2,500 value
$2,500 value
ParcelFact
ParcelFact is included in your LA Pro membership with unlimited pulls.
$150 value
$150 value
$150 value
$150 value
$150 value
FREE Career Path Access
$23,000 value
$23,000 value
$23,000 value
$23,000 value
$23,000 value
Land Academy
No more separate charges - Land Academy is included with LA Pro Membership. This includes all education, tools, support, and future releases.
Concierge Data+ (with data)
Included mailers each month (data + concierge + mailer + postage). Our team will do your data for it and get it out the door.
6,000 mailers
PatLive introduction at no cost
We will help you establish your first script and get PatLive set up on your behalf to answer your phones.
$500 value
Transaction Coordinator
Use of our personal Transaction Coordinator team to manage your deals. Trained and ready to go!
$7,500 value
AirTable
Ready-for-you CRM managed by your personal Land Academy Pro Transaction Coordinator
$100 value
Personal Consulting
1 on 1 personal consulting with our Transaction Coordinator each week.
-
Regular Office Hours
Regular office hours with Jack and Jill + our staff. Private for LA Pro Members Only. (Think Career Path Office Hours)
$2,500 value
ParcelFact
ParcelFact is included in your LA Pro membership with unlimited pulls.
$150 value
FREE Career Path Access
$23,000 value
Land Academy
No more separate charges - Land Academy is included with LA Pro Membership. This includes all education, tools, support, and future releases.
Concierge Data+ (with data)
Included mailers each month (data + concierge + mailer + postage). Our team will do your data for it and get it out the door.
9,000 mailers
PatLive introduction at no cost
We will help you establish your first script and get PatLive set up on your behalf to answer your phones.
$500 value
Transaction Coordinator
Use of our personal Transaction Coordinator team to manage your deals. Trained and ready to go!
$7,500 value
AirTable
Ready-for-you CRM managed by your personal Land Academy Pro Transaction Coordinator
$100 value
Personal Consulting
1 on 1 personal consulting with our Transaction Coordinator each week.
-
Regular Office Hours
Regular office hours with Jack and Jill + our staff. Private for LA Pro Members Only. (Think Career Path Office Hours)
$2,500 value
ParcelFact
ParcelFact is included in your LA Pro membership with unlimited pulls.
$150 value
FREE Career Path Access
$23,000 value
Land Academy
No more separate charges - Land Academy is included with LA Pro Membership. This includes all education, tools, support, and future releases.
Concierge Data+ (with data)
Included mailers each month (data + concierge + mailer + postage). Our team will do your data for it and get it out the door.
12,000 mailers
PatLive introduction at no cost
We will help you establish your first script and get PatLive set up on your behalf to answer your phones.
$500 value
Transaction Coordinator
Use of our personal Transaction Coordinator team to manage your deals. Trained and ready to go!
$7,500 value
AirTable
Ready-for-you CRM managed by your personal Land Academy Pro Transaction Coordinator
$100 value
Personal Consulting
1 on 1 personal consulting with our Transaction Coordinator each week.
$1,000 value
Regular Office Hours
Regular office hours with Jack and Jill + our staff. Private for LA Pro Members Only. (Think Career Path Office Hours)
$2,500 value
ParcelFact
ParcelFact is included in your LA Pro membership with unlimited pulls.
$150 value
FREE Career Path Access
$23,000 value
Land Academy
No more separate charges - Land Academy is included with LA Pro Membership. This includes all education, tools, support, and future releases.
Concierge Data+ (with data)
Included mailers each month (data + concierge + mailer + postage). Our team will do your data for it and get it out the door.
15,000 mailers
PatLive introduction at no cost
We will help you establish your first script and get PatLive set up on your behalf to answer your phones.
$500 value
Transaction Coordinator
Use of our personal Transaction Coordinator team to manage your deals. Trained and ready to go!
$7,500 value
AirTable
Ready-for-you CRM managed by your personal Land Academy Pro Transaction Coordinator
$100 value
Personal Consulting
1 on 1 personal consulting with our Transaction Coordinator each week.
$1,000 value
Regular Office Hours
Regular office hours with Jack and Jill + our staff. Private for LA Pro Members Only. (Think Career Path Office Hours)
$2,500 value
ParcelFact
ParcelFact is included in your LA Pro membership with unlimited pulls.
$150 value
FREE Career Path Access
$23,000 value
Land Academy
No more separate charges - Land Academy is included with LA Pro Membership. This includes all education, tools, support, and future releases.
Concierge Data+ (with data)
Included mailers each month (data + concierge + mailer + postage). Our team will do your data for it and get it out the door.
18,000 mailers
PatLive introduction at no cost
We will help you establish your first script and get PatLive set up on your behalf to answer your phones.
$500 value
Transaction Coordinator
Use of our personal Transaction Coordinator team to manage your deals. Trained and ready to go!
$7,500 value
AirTable
Ready-for-you CRM managed by your personal Land Academy Pro Transaction Coordinator
$100 value
Personal Consulting
1 on 1 personal consulting with our Transaction Coordinator each week.
$1,000 value
Regular Office Hours
Regular office hours with Jack and Jill + our staff. Private for LA Pro Members Only. (Think Career Path Office Hours)
$2,500 value
ParcelFact
ParcelFact is included in your LA Pro membership with unlimited pulls.
$150 value
FREE Career Path Access
$23,000 value
Land Academy
No more separate charges - Land Academy is included with LA Pro Membership. This includes all education, tools, support, and future releases.